When the Mount Kisco Public Library in Mount Kisco, New York needed to move its entire collection of books to a temporary location, it didn’t call in a professional moving company.<\/p>\n
What fun is that?<\/p>\n
Instead, it created “The Great Mount Kisco Book Race,” in which 17 teams of volunteers competed against each other on Saturday.\u00a0 Each team moved a 150-pound pile of books from the main library on Main Street, up a hill, to the temporary library at the Maple Avenue Community Center.\u00a0 The village will tear down the library and build an $8 million library twice as big on the same site.<\/p>\n
The teams, from the Boy Scouts and Rotary to local church groups, paid a $250 entry fee.\u00a0 They met on Saturday morning in a balloon- filled room at the public library.\u00a0 Moments later, the 17 teams–100 volunteers in all–were throwing piles of books into cardboard boxes, loading them onto rolling carts and heading out the door.<\/p>\n
The library made the race even more challenging by forcing each team to stop at certain points along the route and answer literary questions such as “What is the problem in ‘Romeo and Juliet?'” before being allowed to continue.\u00a0 And to make the race even more difficult, contestants had to struggle with a challenging word game.<\/p>\n
The Mount Kisco Lions Club won the trophy.\u00a0 The event raised $20,000 for the library foundation.\u00a0 The Mount Kisco News covered it, and you can read their story at http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/28vym4<\/p>\n
Isn’t that clever?\u00a0 The contest had all the elements of a successful special event:<\/p>\n
– -It involved many groups from throughout the community.<\/p>\n
– -It had people, color and motion–the three things that virtually ensure media coverage.<\/p>\n
– -It included two fun contests that tied into books.<\/p>\n
– -Because the event was so much fun, people will be talking about it for months.<\/p>\n
That’s what I call “building the buzz.”\u00a0 And it’s a critical element of special events.\u00a0 Thanks to Publicity Hound Jeanette Benway of Mount Kisco for tipping me off to this one.<\/p>\n
If you’re planning a special event for later this year, learn clever, creative ideas that other companies and nonprofits have used to stage smashing events.\u00a0 Debra J. Schmidt, a former event planner for a TV station in Milwaukee, teamed up with me to brainstorm 847 ideas on “How to Plan & Promote Sizzling Special Events.”\u00a0 It’s available as a set of 7 Cds or an electronic transcript that you can download and be reading as soon as your order is approved.<\/p>\n
The package comes with 15 can’t-do-without checklists for event planners.\u00a0 Read more about what you’ll learn at http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/46jzg<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" When the Mount Kisco Public Library in Mount Kisco, New York needed to move its entire collection of books to a temporary location, it didn’t call in a professional moving company. What fun is that? Instead, it created “The Great Mount Kisco Book Race,” in which 17 teams of volunteers competed against each other on\u2026 Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","iawp_total_views":3,"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[328,617],"class_list":{"0":"post-893","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"tag-event-publicity","8":"tag-nonprofit-marketing","9":"entry"},"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Joan Stewart","author_link":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/author\/jstewart\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=893"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41115,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/893\/revisions\/41115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=893"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=893"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purelysupp.com\/publicity\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=893"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}